***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

I don’t know where to start with this book but I will say this,Scott Westerfeld is a genius. I love him to bits and pieces and this book reminds me why. When I first heard he had a new book coming out, I was over the moon, to the point where I didn’t pay much attention to the blurb just because I believed I’d love it and love it I did. This may not be his best work, and the novel may seem a little fluffy but there is so much more to it. It has so many hidden depths that come crawling out yet at the same time it makes you laugh. Who doesn’t love a book that can make you laugh yet at the same time makes you think?

Afterworlds, to me, is a work of art. The story follows two different timelines, one of the creator and the other of the created. A book about a book! BOOKCEPTION! Darcy is a young author, barely out of high school who got paid a huge advance for her book and can finally be an adult (YAY, Adulting is fun. NOT). Lizzie is the main character of said book. You’d think the two storylines wouldn’t have much connecting them aside from the fact that Darcy made up Lizzie but that’s not true.What really connects them, under all of that, is the fact that both are coming of age stories. Both these young women are thrust into situations out of their depth and as a result they grow. Darcy becomes a highly paid (unprinted) author at a young age and has to learn how to fit into the publishing community. She's also a tad naive so a lot of her journey is also about realizing that not everything is 'YA heaven'. Lizzie on the other hand has to learn to deal with all the death surrounding her and has to also learn all about this whole new world she finds herself in.

You know what’s brilliant though? I DON’T HAVE A FAVORITE TIMELINE! I loved both of them equally. There were times when I was more sucked in by one than the other but when I closed the book I didn’t have a favorite.

Darcy’s storyline was the one that made me ask the questions though. The glimpse we got of the publishing community left me hyper (I really do mean hyper... like jumping off the walls hyper) and just hungry to know more. It was so fascinating and even a little scary to see what authors (may) go through. The amount of hard work they put in, the problems they may come across and those bits broke my heart.  Darcy herself was a wonderful, sometimes annoying but all around fun to read about character. I think what made her so realistic was that in spite of everything that had happened to her, she wasn’t a mature adult. She was out of her depth. She didn’t do things perfectly and carefully. She blew her budget, screwed things up but at the end of it all, she learned from her mistakes. She grew up. That’s what made her storyline beautiful.

Lizzie’s on the other hand was more complicated to discern because her story is a book inside of a book and the book is supposed to be deep. The problem is that I kept on imagining it as Darcy’s book so I had a different view of it while reading than I did after I finished the book and realized that it wasn’t Darcy’s book, it was Scott Westerfeld’s book. Lizzie’s storyline was written in a certain way to emphasize that it was Darcy’s book and we could see hints of Darcy’s personality in it. Basically, Scott Westerfeld is a genius. Are you guys starting to get the idea that I really love Scott? WELL IT’S BECAUSE HE’S A BLOODY GENIUS. Moving on. Lizzie’s character was similar in some ways to Darcy but at the same time, it wasn’t. Their situations were different and, in some ways, Lizzie was more mature. She made silly mistakes too but she dealt with things in a way I felt like Darcy probably wouldn’t have if she were in the same situation. It really was so interesting to compare and contrast the two and see how Scott created developed their characters.

The world building in this book is magnificent. It’s hard to write a book about a book. Especially when the writer of the book is also a character (of the book that is being written about… are you confused yet?). But he does it and he does it well. I don’t really know how to explain it to y’all because it’s hard. Scott’s world consists of the bookish community but it also consists of the world he created for the book that is inside this book. The world building of Afterworlds, which is (also) the name of Darcy’s book, is marvelous. Not going to elaborate but think psychopomps, a little bit of hindu myth and the afterworlds. But going back to Darcy’s timeline, you get to also see the ways in which Afterworlds isn’t perfect. You see criticism for the other timeline, something you might have been thinking yourself and that just makes this all the more interesting.

I am getting to the point of my review where I usually start to talk about the romances and you know what? I won’t. The romances don’t matter. I mean they do, but everything else that is going on in this book is so much bigger and better. I will offer one hint though; both romances have relevance.

I am not going to say anymore. I will shut up and all I ask of you is to give this a shot. Don’t be intimidated by the size, you’re going to love it and if not love it, at the very least, like it. It’s Scott Westerfeld after all.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

When I first heard about Magnolia, I was sold. Tornados? SURVIVING one? Love/hate relationships? What else could I want? Nothing. This book lived up to every single one of my expectations and then some. Okay, I was lying. I wanted more. SO MUCH MORE. This book was just not long enough and I was heartbroken when it came to an end.

This story is kind of like Romeo and Juliet in reverse, where the families are "like this" and the kids hate each other… or do they?

This is the kind of book you hate reviewing, because there are so many things you have to say, yet every time you try to think of those things, you end up drawing a blank. In other words, I loved this book.

One of the best things about this book was the presence positive relationships between siblings and friends. All the support Jemma's friends showed her warmed my heart, and I loved the bond between Jemma and Nan.

What I liked even better is that, in spite of the fact that bothJemma's and Ryder’s mothers are pushy, they aren’t portrayed as villains. They ARE mothers and they DO love their children, even if they do get a little (this is a slight understatement) carried away.

The main characters are SO LIKEABLE.

On one hand you have Jemma, who works hard and is the "good" daughter who follows the rules and does what her parents want. The problem is that she is now starting to realize that she doesn’t want what her mom has planned for her. What she wants is to be able to go to NYU to study film. But when tragedy strikes and her sister is diagnosed with a brain tumor, things get a little rocky, and suddenly she doesn’t know how to ask for what she wants.

On the other hand, you have--wait for it--RYDER. Ryder is the love interest and while he doesn’t he get his own POV (which is a real pity), he definitely plays a larger role than just being your typical eye candy--he has the exact same problem as Jemma (which really isn’t surprising once you get to learn more about the their family's dynamics). What makes him so likeable is that, under his tough exterior, he really just is a silly (and absolutely adorable) teen who isn’t quite sure of what he wants. And like all teens, he is just trying to figure it out. What’s even sweeter is that he isn’t a two-faced jerk. HE IS A SWEETHEART.

The romance between the two is just so well developed.  They have this love/hate relationship which isn’t so much "hate" as it is them not being sure about whether or not they want each other. Their moms have spent their entire lives pushing them together... and as the two start to realize that they don’t want what their moms want for them, they begin to question their attraction as well. What if their moms are wrong about that as well? An incident that occurred in 8th grade made things slightly more complicated. As a result, they stopped being friends and started pulling away from each other.

The tornado forces the two together. With both of their parents out of town, they will have to rely on one another to get through the storm--that’s what ACT II is all about. Act II was my favorite part of this book, and I so desperately wished it had been longer. The details Cook included about the tornado, the destruction, the fear, the sirens, and generallyall of it, was just marvelous. I have always enjoyed a good survival story, and I just wanted the survival aspects of this to be given more stage time, especially since our main characters were FINALLY together without anyone to interrupt them.

I think, had ACT II been longer, or if the book focused on the storm more, it would have been a 5 star read for me. If we got a better glimpse of the aftermath instead of fast-forwarding 2 weeks to when things were getting back to normal, I would have been so much happier.

ACT III was where things became a lot weaker, in my opinion. I guess it was kind of like the whole storm was forgotten about, and that was slightly upsetting. Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing the whole family come back together--especially Nan. I loved seeing the relationship between Jem and Ryder develop further, but it just felt like the storm was basically swept under the rug.

That aside, this book was really heart-warming. I adored it and would recommend it to everyone looking for a generally positive book with great relationships, cute couples and a very fun premise.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Actual Rating 3.5

Let’s Get Lost was a book I was looking forward to reading and I am really glad I wasn’t let down. I wouldn’t say it blew my mind away, but I definitely had the feels. I think the best way to think of this book is to allude it to one of those you read when you’re not having a great day. It’s far from perfect as when I look back, I can think of so many things that could have been better, but in spite of this I'm not even tempted to lower the rating, because I still remember this book with fondness (although it hasn’t been all that long since I’ve read it).

This won’t be for everyone, though. There are an awful lot of conveniences and problems that are solved quite easily, but, if you, like me, love happy endings then this book is  for you. If you get warm cuddly feelings when everything works out for someone then you’ll love this. Just like I did.

And no, saying that isn’t really a spoiler. This book consists of 5 short stories, and personally, I think it was a very interesting way to develop the plot. We get the stories of each of the 4 people whose lives Leila has made a difference and then we finally get hers.

Leila is a very interesting character. She seems to be this happy-go-lucky kind of person in everyone else’s story, but when you get to hers, you realize there is so much to her. She has her own problems, but in the one day she gets to know each of the other characters in this story, she manages to have a huge impact in their lives.

Hudson was a likeable character, as far as I am concerned, but at the same time, the insta-love like feels between him and Leila were a little off-putting and did take away some from my enjoyment. His story is nothing out of the ordinary, but at the same time, it's something many people experience, and while I wish the ending to his story hadn't been that vague, we did end up getting closure, so there was that.

Bree’s story was my favorite though, which is surprising, because I was completely frustrated by her character at first, but it turns out her childishness and immaturity were important to the story and her conclusion left me with tons of warm happy feelings.

Elliot's story was adorable. He is in love with his best friend, but she turned him down, and so he and Leila spend the whole night trying to win her back. It does have that romantic comedy-like feel to it and is slightly unbelievable, considering all of that happened in a night, but at the end of the day, I enjoyed his story.

Sonia’s story was perhaps my least favorite, because it was pretty heart-breaking for me. Sonia’s ex-boyfriend died a year ago and she’s been seeing this other person for a while and loves him too, but she’s too afraid to really do something about it because she constantly feels like she is cheating on her ex who she loved, too. The adventure she and Leila share was pretty unbelievable, and although it did make the story a lot less gloomy, I had a lot of question-mark moments when I wondered how that was even possible (no spoilers).

I do think that each of their stories could have benefited from being longer so that the characters could have had more depth, but I don’t have a lot of qualms when it comes to this story.

Alsaid tells each of their stories in such a manner that you cannot help but be swept along in each of their stories and hope that they all get an HEA.

It was Leila’s story that surprised me the most, though, especially when we finally get to her POV and realize there is so much more to her.  She is the character who you really want to cuddle with and I think her story is one of the most realistic in this ‘collection’.

I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to spoil these stories and am trying to keep this as vague as possible so that you can experience all of these characters journeys for yourself.

This is a beautifully written book and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone who doesn’t mind a slow pace and stories that aren’t all about something big happening. It’s a perfect summer read and I had a lot of fun reading this.

***Note: this review assumes that you've read the book.***

One-sentence summary: A beautifully written, appropriately (which means "quite") explicit novel about a young woman's growing understanding of both her sexuality and her real value in the world. 

The plot, so I won't forget. When Anna was little, her mother told her a story: her mother's life was empty, until she had her little girl, "and now I have everything." Anna demands this story, like a mantra. It's the cocoon that she wraps herself in to feel safe. But then, when Anna is still a young girl (I got the impression of about seven?) her mother is not satisfied with just Anna, and she begins bleaching her hair, having plastic surgeries, and endlessly looking for men to complete her. Anna suffers through a series of stepdads and stepbrothers (thank goodness none of them is abusive, although all of them are distant and disinterested and rarely earn names in Anna's first-person present-tense narration).

Anna's mother's series of (failed) marriages allow her to trade-up in terms of houses, but Anna's mother becomes distant--eventually not even showing up anymore when Anna is a young teen, because she's either traveling for work or sleeping with another man. Anna eats frozen pizza alone, and her only instruction is reminder notes to rinse the dishes before she loads them. 

With that lack of guidance and love, Anna gleans the only thing she can from her mother's behavior: that a woman's value is her sexuality, and that she's nothing without a man. Anna begins narrating her own life story. "I had no mother. I had no father. And then I met you, and you changed everything." Her introduction to sex happens in a heartbreaking way, on the bus, when a boy named Desmond touches her breast one day and she allows it, not knowing how to draw boundaries (and interested by the way the touch makes her feel). While Desmond's friends are watching, he touches her breast the next day and makes her touch his erect penis through his pants, pushing her hand down again and again until he comes right into his jeans. Anna becomes the slut joke of the school, and her only friend, Nancy, abandons her. But who needs girlfriends when you can have boys? 

A new boy named Joey arrives at school and she takes him home. Their sex life escalates quickly, and he says he loves her. He makes her big suburban home feel less empty, and this is what she thinks she needs. While on one of her (frequent) shopping outings at a thrift store, Anna meets Toy, a girl who is from a similarly dysfunctional home--another beautiful suburban home, this one with a swimming pool that's as empty as Toy's family life. Soon we figure out that Toy's single mother is an alcoholic. But Toy seems to have healthy relationships with boys who love her, vie for her, buy her thoughtful, sentimental gifts, and initiate sex gently and consensually.

Eventually Joey's family moves away (didn't Anna's mother say that all men leave?) and Anna is alone again. On a vacation with her family, she goes to a party, gets drunk, and is raped by her friend's stepbrother, Todd. She knows it's rape, but she can't bring herself to tell anyone. She drops out of school, takes a job in a coffee shop (she's maybe 16 at this point) and meets a boy named Josh, who is also young but living on his own, painting houses for an exhausting, meager living. She moves in with him, and they struggle to make ends meet, but soon she realizes that she has heard all of his stories and we know that she's starting to see that their life together is going nowhere. Unfortunately, they've had unprotected sex and she's pregnant. Anna gets an abortion, and has the first of two views of healthy women: the woman in the clinic, Jane, also had an abortion around Anna's age; she listens well and respects Anna. Anna's friend Toy and her mother and Josh rally around her, helping her through the procedure, but she knows it's over with Josh. She gets her own apartment--sentimentally just doors away from the "tell-me-again" apartment, even though her mother tries to insist that she come home.

There is a meaningful moment when Anna realizes, looking at her own body, that this is all there is in the world: her. It's just an inkling, though. Just the beginning. It takes her a while to understand what it means: that she's enough for herself.

In the water I watch my feet emerge, disconnected in the far end of the tub. This is me, I think, and I sit up suddenly, like a revelation. I hook my knees over the edge, stare at the curve of my stomach, my bent legs, my feet and I think, this is it. This is everything. And it's not like waiting. And it's not like imagining. And it's not like a story I tell myself. Maybe, I think, it's not boys. It's not Josh. Or Joey. It's not this empty house. Or Josh's cold apartment. I climb out of the tub and stand naked in front of my mom's full-length mirror. All I can hear is the furnace. This is all of me, I think, and I stretch out my arms like a five-pointed star. (p. 115) 

At the coffee shop she meets Sam, a boy who's still in school and sexually inexperienced. They have a sweet relationship and he takes her home immediately to have dinner with his family--a loving, tight-knit group who make dinner together, laugh, and support each other. Anna feels for the first time that she belongs, that she knows what a home is. Sam's mother is her second good role model, telling her that she's smart and strong, and can do anything with her life. Still, when Sam goes on vacation and she's alone and insecure about their new relationship, Anna takes a hookup back to her apartment from a cafe, and we realize she's not quite there yet.

At some point Anna drops in unexpectedly on Toy and learns that Toy's "wonderful" boys are all made up. Toy is sad and lonely, too, and has made up stories that make her feel special and valued--that allow her to compete with Anna. Anna leaves, upset.

When Sam returns, their relationship begins in earnest. Anna teaches Sam about sex, and they have clandestine relations in her apartment while lying to Sam's parents that they're "waiting." Soon, on a day when Sam is home feverish and sick from school, he calls her over and they have sex in his room, only to be discovered by Sam's mom, who asks Anna to leave. Anna thinks it's the end of her relationship with Sam, and seeks out another hookup, but ultimately kicks the boy out without sleeping with him. She has had a profound revelation that she doesn't really have it so bad: her mom and Toy are her family. They cared for her in their own ways when she had the abortion, and they depend on her--she is their support structure. She finds the courage to visit Sam's family to apologize, and discovers that she's still welcome. She introduces Sam to Toy--finally seeing her strength, forgiving Toy, and bringing together her worlds, forming her own kind of family.  

The writing. Anna's voice is beautifully spare, and so frank and self-aware, even while she struggles with who she is. The short chapters feel episodic and as disjointed as her life feels to her. The repetition of her "tell-me-again-times" story gives the feeling of poetry.

Themes. I loved the way story-telling was a motif that threads through the novel. Anna tells herself stories and stockpiles internal narrations of her life to tell Toy later. Meanwhile, Toy feels the need to tell stories to make herself feel better and more loved than she is. Anna's mother tells the "tell-me-again" story, but then abandons it, not realizing how much of a loss it represents to her daughter.

Part of Anna's storytelling is visual: she cuts out scenes from magazines that represent the sort of idealized life she wishes she had, and tapes them to her wall--girls in nice clothes, yes, but also girls free on swings, and images of happy families. A big turning point for her occurs when her potential hookup looks at her magazine clippings and misunderstands them: "Is this what you want? To look like a slut?" 

A motif I liked less was clothing. There is way, way too much description of clothing in the book. I think the point is, like the magazine clippings, to show that Anna and Toy are trying on personas, that they think superficial things will anchor who they are. But the exhaustive description of the outfits they're buying and wearing and borrowing becomes incredibly tiresome. For instance, at a pivotal moment when Sam's mom barges into the room and naked Anna is rocking on top of naked Sam, Anna notices exactly what Sam's mom's business suit and briefcase look like. Really?

The title and cover. Um, not so good. The cover would be okay, I guess, if the title were more useful. What does "uses for boys" mean? Am I missing something? I think it's supposed to convey some of the healthy sexual empowerment Anna has. She does realize that her active sex life isn't slutty--that it's part of who she is, and that it has conveyed important knowledge about relationships to her, and that she enjoys sex. But it sounds almost militant, which is not at all how her personality (or her growth) works in this novel. Anna never once says anything that implies she's using boys. Even when she takes home the boy from the cafe for a one-night stand, she's not using him. She's trying (awkwardly, the only way she thinks she knows how) to feel close to someone, because of her confusion over what she means to Sam while he's away. Plus, in multiple instances she's used by boys, but the title doesn't allow us to intuit that.

In sum: I'm dismayed that this lovely novel has an average 3.15 rating on goodreads. Why are some of the best YA books out there so misunderstood by the very people who supposedly love to read? It's getting to be that I only think a book will actually be good if it has under 3.75 as a rating on goodreads. 

Hooray! This review is NOT particularly spoilery! 

One-sentence summary: A serviceable novel, written by someone experienced in the subject matter, covering an important topic from an interesting perspective, but ultimately not plotted complexly enough or written beautifully enough to be an enduring literary contribution.

The plot. Ani is the new girl in town--a free spirit with a sharp tongue, a strong personality, and an artistic mother. Ben, the protagonist, is a good and decent kid, a half-Haitian swimmer, hoping to get a swim scholarship to a university in Iowa. Ben's and Ani's attachment grows in a believable way, and they embark fairly thoughtfully and deliberately on a sexual relationship. Ani and her mother are so close and comfortable with each other, they also discuss this step together. When Ani is raped at a party that Ben chose not to go to, Ani is devastated and Ben is thrown into a situation he's unprepared for. Ben feels guilt at not being there to protect her, rage at the boys who did it, and confusion about the conflicting "fog of war" reports by other people at the party. Ani suffers pain, humiliation, and the abusive comments of her classmates, who think she was a willing participant. Her response is first to pull inward, and then to become what everyone thinks she is--a promiscuous girl who "asked for it." Ben wants to help her, and he's genuinely supportive, but her spiral down into self-hatred is out of his control. How do you help someone who pushes you away? They are alone dealing with this, as Ben goes along with Ani's desire not to tell her mother. The end does not wrap up neatly, perhaps in keeping with how open-ended healing can be after such a horrific experience.

The topic. Fault Line explores the aftermath of sexual assault from the perspective of the boyfriend of the victim. As such it's a valuable contribution to the discussion, because it's not the voice of a perpetrator, but a boy who is loving and caring and wants to help, but doesn't have the tools. There are plenty of young men who are or will be a family member, or friend, or lover to someone who experiences rape, and bringing them into the conversation is important. Ben initially has nothing at his disposal but rage and a desire to protect. He learns quickly not to judge, to hold his questions at bay, to be supportive, to say (some of) the right things. But he's a beginner; he's in over his head and not used to reaching out for help himself. To top it off, the help he does get is of mixed value. The rape counselor is a very young, unseasoned part-time volunteer; the web forums have anonymous (and therefore questionably real) participants; the advice he gets online is conflicting and sometimes wrong. Ben begins to lose himself--lose swimming, lose his scholarship, lose the closeness he had with his family--because of the secret he holds for Ani, and because of the energy he pours into trying to "fix" her.

The writing. Unfortunately, while the writing is pleasingly plain and grammatically fluent, it's not nuanced. There is almost nothing between the lines, and some sections are downright didactic. The author points this out in almost a meta-way through Ben, who says the rape-counselor-volunteer is speaking some sort of trained psycho-babble. "What does that even mean?" he challenges more than once. But we readers suspect that we're supposed to absorb what she's saying, because the author is teaching us through her.

Ani. One of the only problems with having the narrative from the boyfriend's perspective in first-person is the risk that other characters will become flat. While some of Ani's opaqueness is appropriate--Ben can't understand the changes in her, after all, and we're hearing his voice--I hadn't gotten close enough to her before the rape to know her well. It meant that I was watching something horrible happen to her, without caring deeply for her. Yes, I was outraged as a woman and as a person at the attack, but I didn't connect with her beforehand, which is a shame. It doesn't help that at a key moment she speaks not like a person, but like a case study: "Don't you see? If I don't hate myself, I don't feel anything at all. At least disgust feels better than nothing."

Flash Forward. Chapter One starts with a flash forward, which I think was a mistake. It tells us where Ani ends up, later in the novel, and makes the build to that moment inevitable and expected. It doesn't give us the chance to long for Ani to find peace and help along the way. It would have been better for us to get there in real time. In general, flashbacks and flashforwards disrupt our feeling that we're a fly on the wall, watching the action unfold. They jolt us out of the story--they always risk showing us the structure, or scaffolding of a story, when we prefer to feel transported.

In sum. Like Laurie Halse Anderson's The Impossible Knife of Memory (review here), this book tackles an important issue that needs to be addressed in literature, but does it in a way that's ordinary enough (artistically) that the book itself is not as memorable as it should be. To be fiction that lasts, the story has to have layers, and themes, and a complexity that makes reading and re-reading a process of continual discovery and effort on the part of the audience.